I Want To Be With Sesshomaru Forever!
by Princess Sassafras
Summary: Why does the firstborn son of the great Dog Lord of the Western Lands decide to save a tiny ningen girl, and keep her?


"I Want To Be With Sesshomaru Forever!"

Part I

_in the mountain  
in the forest  
in the wind  
in a dream  
where are you prince sesshomaru?  
with an ally like jakken  
i will wait alone until you come  
prince sesshomaru please return..._

Her voice is an accustomed thing, like a change in the slope of the land. When there is rain at night she sleeps beneath the wicker blanket and is mostly silent, though being human her breathing is thunderous. When there is green and the sun is high, she sings in the fields picking lilies. They wither soon after she brings them to me, and hangs them upon the bridle of Aun. She sighs, her breath seeming to wither also as she takes them down and lays them by a stream or a rock as if it were a new tomb.

"Jakken-sama…where do all the flowers go?"

"Back to the ground, you silly child! As will you!"

My glance cuts the toad demon from behind, and he realizes his folly. "Ah, Sesshomaru-sama…forgive poor Jakken! Rin—mortal though she may be—has many handfuls of years left to her…!"

I am silent. There are many more important things to focus on now than the bantering of a ridiculous toad. True though it may be. Human years are short, like that of lilies. They do wither…

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Her voice rises timidly, inquisitive.

I turn my head slightly to let her know that I am listening, but keep the majority of my focus on the path ahead.

"Where will you put me when I am gone? Dead in the ground?"

I stop walking. Could this be…why is she questioning?

"Rin. We will not discuss such foolishness."

She falters for a few moments, then her small smile quavers back into existence. I hear it in her voice. "H-hai…Sesshomaru-sama!" She is unusually quiet for a time, until the sun is high in the sky and I can hear how dry and heavy her tongue is in her mouth.

"Rin. Go with Jakken. There is a river to the southeast."

"Hai!" I lower my hand and allow her small dirty foot to use it as a stepping-down place from the back of the pack demon. "Arigotou, Sesshomaru-sama! Rin and Jakken-sama will go for water!" She breaks into a trot through the tall grass and Jakken follows, appearing highly disgruntled. "Human Rin is thirsty, human Rin is hungry, human Rin must relieve her bowels…Che! House-nanny Jakken! Oh, poor, poor Jakken…!"

Idiot toad.

They are gone for a short span of time, and I smell nothing new in the air. Naraku is still hidden from my senses. He is waiting for me, grinning and waiting. What method does he use to conceal his scent? Even my senseless half-breed brother, who often chances upon him, does not know the source of his concealment. It is I who should know. I am blinded. I am…

A small voice, and far away, rends the still air. There is the sudden stink of fear.

"_Sesshomaru-sama_!"

I feel my blood pump furiously against its will.

I follow the smell of her sweat, no longer hearing her cries. Delicious bile fills the back of my throat, and my gums ache. If I smell her blood I will want blood in return. Guts of the ningen or youkai who dares! Taken of my property. Stolen what is mine, and spoilt it. Blood…

Her smell leads me to a clearing past the river, and a new aura assails me. Youkai. Music. I hear…I see him now, his leering horned face puckered around a small syrinx. The last few notes fall from his pipe as he raises lazy yellow eyes to me. The dirty village children he has lured to him are cowered beneath the roots of an oak. I can smell them. The fear is stinking.

"_Rin_." Her small neck is enclosed between his long clawed fingers and she cannot make a sound short of a maddening whimper. There are scratches on her knees, the bleeding stopped by caked-on dust. Her face is likewise filthy, the tracks of her tears cutting down her cheeks.

The youkai makes not a sound as I advance upon him, my claws already aching with poison. He makes no sound as he drops, his neck swinging halfway severed and his yellow eyes now empty. Rin gasps breathlessly as the horned green hand falls limp from her throat. I lower to my knee in time to break her fall, and draw her to me with the crook of my arm. My claws still ache and may give her a fatal cut. I can smell her blood through the scent of dirt now, but her relief overpowers it. When she can breathe clearly she begins to sob. I allow it, and am still for a while, holding her dark head to my armored chest.

How can human hearts beat so quickly? Are they in such a hurry to tire?

She sobs herself into sleep, there near the carcass of the lurid demon. The children have long since gone running, babbling about the white ghost-man in the forest who killed the Pipe Youkai.

I lift Rin into my arms, and start backward. Jakken will pay for leaving her.

------------------

"Sesshomaru-sama! Forgive worthless Jakken! Ah! I looked eastward only for a moment…and young Rin ran along the river to her doom! Called for her, did Jakken…I…Sesshomaru-sama!"

I should end his life. The sound of my sword hilt meeting his small green skull sounds through the field. It wakes Rin. She is lying curled in the grass a few feet away where I lay her, quivering with fear. Her eyes look as though they are seeing nothing. "Sess-Sesshomaru…" She is searching for me, unfeeling and unseeing. Her small pale hand gropes blindly… Something akin to loathing rises in my throat, but it could be fear.

"Rin." I kneel close beside her, letting her sense my presence.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" Her joy is apparent, nearly choking her. I will never understand. I cannot let her die, but what is this glowing deeply in her dull eyes? I do not know. She sobs anew, wiping her face on my robes. I carry her back to where Aun is grazing, and place her upon its back. "Rin, stay here." She nods mutely, wiping her streaming eyes. I cross back over to where Jakken is sprawled, his ugly beaked face twisted upward in a mask of pain. "Jakken. We move." I turn and lead the pack beast down the same road, listening to the toad struggling to walk. It is satisfying.

Rin's concern is evident as she struggles to turn her trembling body around in the saddle. "J-Jakken-sama! Why does he stumble so?"

I do not answer. It is time we found a resting spot. Her weariness and hunger are apparent, and creep into my bones like a disease. And she is dirty. The same river curves directly south, and Jakken can keep watch while she bathes.

That plan in mind, I turn to other things. The moon is taking its passage in the sky, and soon it will not be summer but autumn. And then winter. No smell, especially Naraku's, will greet me in winter. There must be another way to continue this Hunt. My idiot brother relies on the miko woman. I do not need such alliances. Naraku's deeds are widespread, and soon we will pass a burning village and one of his minions enjoying the spoils. Kagura. A vision of the red-eyed bitch enters my mind, and is discarded. I had thought once of taking her, but now the mere thought of her morphed body disgusts me, the black mark of Naraku on her naked back reminding me of what she is made of.

Rin slumbers. Jakken has not perched himself behind her, but stumbles dutifully in her wake like a sad dog. I hear the curve of the river ahead as we approach, pushing against the stones. I begin to search for a relatively calm spot, and order Jakken to tie Aun there. When Rin wakes she may bathe and eat.

I have a memory of her small hands placing ningen food beneath me, as I lay wounded. She stank of fear then, fear of me, but still she came. I ate none of it—filth. But one night she did not come. I heard her cries, mixed in the wind with the pack-yelps and smell of wolf youkai. I do not know what made me save her, and she so close to death, only the decision was made. The demon shacklers fell to my Hell Sword, and Rin awoke. And she followed me, with my allowance. Why do I allow it?

She wakes close to the next sunrise, her hunger making it painfully known. Jakken has brought her roots and berries and paste from a strange water plant for her red knees. I watch as she washes them and then wades into the reeds to bathe, all the while gnawing on a root. I turn my back and watch the sky. Rain in the next few days. A full moon tomorrow night. I see Rin's yellow kimono folded neatly near the riverbank out of the corner of my eye. I hear her splashing and calling to Jakken. "Jakken-sama…do you not like the water? Won't you play with Rin-chan? Jakken-sama, Jakken-sama, why are you green like a toad and won't go in the wa-ah-ter!"

Her singsong fades to the sounds of splashing, and Jakken refusing to enter her "smelly little pool. All full of ningen dirt! Even ningen women must bathe and perfume. You are the dirtiest female child I have ever laid eyes on! What a shame—Sesshomaru-sama allows you to be near. I do not wonder at his infinite wisdom. However, if it were my decision…"

But it's not. It's not your decision. It was and is mine. But why did I make it? And why do I keep and protect her even now? Her scent is new like any ningen babe, but beneath…a deeper smell like that of old power. She did not fear me, that first night or even now. Her soul knows what to truly fear…and what not to fear. Perhaps this is what my father meant by having found something to protect. Perhaps the worth of protection is that it gives a certain purpose. I do not need her; no, never need. But I cannot allow, nor will I accept, her pain or displeasure. It is my decision; I will it be so.


End file.
